


Finding Myself Tangible

by sapphire_child



Category: Lost
Genre: Angst, Community: 50_darkfics, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-25
Updated: 2007-01-25
Packaged: 2019-01-15 05:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12314367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: He won’t let her go.





	Finding Myself Tangible

**Author's Note:**

> I claimed Charlie and Claire over on [](https://50-darkfics.livejournal.com/profile)[**50_darkfics**](https://50-darkfics.livejournal.com/)  
>  **Prompt:** 90\. Tight  
> 

She doesn’t think he’ll ever let her go. His arm muscles must surely be cramping from the way he’s holding her, but if his wretched sobs are any indication then she supposes that he won’t be letting go any time soon – physically or emotionally.

He won’t let her go.

Her skin feels goose bumped and tingly all at the same time and she rubs her fingers together, hoping to regain some sensation of feeling. This is all so impossible, this moment, and yet here she is. Only…she’s not really here at all. Her head feels like it’s filled with cotton wool and water.

She moves her hands to her arms and rubs a little more vigorously as she shifts position. She watches him with a sort of detached interest, at the way his hands claw frantically at flesh, at the way his arms squeeze tighter and tighter, trying to get a grip on the life that’s just slipped out of his fingers.

Is he crying because he loves her? Or is he just unable to live without her? She ponders his motives as he pulls back suddenly, crying out angrily as he shakes her body like a rag doll – like it might help somehow.

She’s almost shocked – she’s never seen him like this. His hands are so tight around the tops of her arms that they look like they’re going to bruise her fair skin. But in her current state, it doesn’t all seem so important – bruises don’t really matter much at the moment.

But when he begins to squeeze one wrist for a pulse and she feels a sudden pressure on her arm she begins to get worried. He’s still half hysterical but he’s begun to breathe into her – he’s begun to breathe his own life back into her the way he’s been shown.

 _Took you bloody long enough,_ she thinks then gasps a little as the pressure of his hands pressing against her sternum hits her like a bullet and a bucket of cold water all at once. She’s slowly feeling more and more tangible as he continues and he’s becoming calmer and calmer as he goes along, getting into a rhythm that he can keep going. It’s almost a song now, breathing and pressure and breathing and pressure…

She gasps out loud as she jolts back to herself, a fit of painful coughing exploding out of her mouth as he collapses beside her, exhausted from the ordeal of losing her. She breathes shakily for several minutes, the pain – the tightness – in her chest ebbing and flowing in an endless pattern of crescendo and decrescendo. A wave of nausea overtakes her and she turns her head so that she doesn’t choke on her own vomit.

And he’s there again, back to himself again, crying and laughing with endless joy as he touches her face and calls her name – _can you hear me? Claire? Can you hear me?_

Yes she can hear him.

The memory of him bringing her back to life ebbs away like the tide as he scoops her into his arms and kisses all over her face.

For a moment he thought he had lost her. And for a moment she thought she’d lost herself too.


End file.
